Status: This version of the Community Group and Business Group Process is obsolete as of 8 August 2011; see the current version.
This document defines the processes that govern W3C Community and Business Groups. Other groups within W3C, and the processes W3C follows to create standards, are governed by the W3C Process.
Summary
Since the early days of the Consortium, the number of stakeholders of the Web has grown significantly, powerful collaboration tools have gone mainstream, and expectations about standards themselves have evolved. W3C’s “classic” process and Membership models meet the needs of some stakeholders, but not all. W3C seeks to offer larger numbers of developers, designers, and others passionate about the Web the means to build communities.
This document defines W3C Community Groups, where anyone may develop specifications, hold discussions, develop tests, and so on, with no participation fee. Community groups emphasize individual innovation and allow an easy way for innovation from individuals to move to the “classic” W3C standards process, which emphasizes broad consensus-building and implementation among global stakeholders. Community Groups develop specifications under a Community Group Agreement designed to strike a balance between ease of participation and safety for implementers and patent holders. The new offering complements the classic process and patent policy; it does not replace it. Read more about the objectives of this project below.
This document also defines Business Groups to increase participation by organizations who may not be primarily motivated by participation in W3C standards development but instead are interested in the application of W3C technologies to business problems, and in providing high-bandwidth input to the standards process. Business Group participants who are not W3C Members pay for staff resources, but the fee for participating in Business Groups is less than W3C Membership (and grants fewer benefits).
These programs are managed by a Community Development Lead, chosen by W3C management. The roles of the Community Development Lead are described throughout this document.
W3C Forum
The W3C Forum is a venue for discussion of Web-related topics including development of specifications. People submit material (a “Community Submission”) to the Forum that they wish to be developed by a Community Group. W3C reserves the right to refuse publication of a Community Submission, for instance if the material is likely to cause offense or confusion.
Individuals who wish to participate in the W3C Forum — enter into discussion or submit proposals — must agree to the general participation policies. Participants are responsible for making clear the copyright and patent terms of their submissions.
Community Submission Publication Policies
Community Submissions must not use a style that will cause them to be confused with W3C Technical Reports. W3C may publish additional policies to govern publication of Community Submissions.
Community Groups
Community Groups are open to all with no fee. They are designed in particular to provide developers with a place to meet.
When ideas gain momentum in the W3C Forum, discussion moves to a Community Group with an identified scope. The scope explains the topic of interest and is used to promote participation. It may evolve with time. The scope has no patent licensing implications.
Creation of a Community Group
Anyone may propose the creation of a Community Group. A proposal is “complete” when:
- It includes a name for the group (not already taken by a Community Group) and a scope description. The scope should be different than that of any other Community Group (but it may be the same, such as when two communities wish to explore two solutions to the same set of problems). Note: Initially W3C anticipates that each Community Group will publish only one specification; that policy may change with experience.
- Five individuals support the creation of the group. The W3C Forum may be used to build this support.
Once a proposal is complete, W3C announces the creation of the group (which includes its software infrastructure). This date is called the “launch date.”
The Community Development Lead does not formally approve proposals but may reject a proposal for a Community Group when the scope is likely to cause offense or confusion, is frivolous, or is overly broad.
Joining a Community Group
Anyone may join any Community Group. Participants mustagree to the participation policies. There are no participation fees.
Community Group Chair(s)
Each Community Group must have at least one Chair who is responsible for ensuring the group fulfills the requirements of this document as well as the procedures the group establishes for itself. The participants of the Group choose their Chair(s). The Chair(s) are also the primary contacts for the Community Development Lead.
Duration and Closure of a Community Group
Once a Community Group has been launched, participants may continue to work indefinitely, until the Community Development Lead closes the group; see the grounds for closure.
No less than ten business days before closing a group, the Community Development Lead must alert the participants. Once closed, no individuals may join, and discussions stop. However, W3C makes available information about closed Community Groups and archives of their communications.
Closed Community Groups are re-opened following the creation process.
Grounds for Closure of a Community Group
The Community Development Lead may close a Community Group in any of following circumstances:
- Chair Request. The Group Chair requests that the group be closed (e.g., as the result of a group decision, or on a certain date selected in advance by the group).
- Inactivity. The number of participants drops below 3 for an extended period, or because participant activity (e.g., as measured by communications among participants) ceases for an extended period.
- Antitrust Issues. When, in the judgment of the Community Development Lead, Participant behavior raises antitrust concerns, including discussion of pricing or market division, activity that may might reasonably be perceived as collusion, etc.
- Agreement Violations. When, in the judgment of the Community Development Lead, the group has committed a serious violation of this policy, for instance exceeding its scope.
The Community Development Lead and Chair should discuss the group’s status before the Community Development Lead initiates closure.
Community Group Communications
Each Community Group will have both public and non-public communications mechanisms. The former are for work, the latter for administrative matters (e.g., personal information used in meeting planning).
To help Community Group participants adhere to the general communications policies, all participants (including the Chair) should help moderate discussion (for instance, to keep the group focused on relevant topics).
In order to help the community track process, each Community Group is encouraged to summarize accomplishments, barriers to progress, or other challenges from time to time.
All communications must be archived; one reason is to support the Community Group Agreement.
Communications and Contributions under the Community Group Agreement
The Community Group Agreement relies on the notion of a contribution. In deference to implementers, all communications within a Community Group are considered to be contributions. Participants that wish to exclude contributions must do so conspicuously in individual communications. Participants are not permitted to participate under the reverse terms (“nothing is a contribution unless I explicitly label it one.”).
Community Group Branding
W3C will provide Community Group branding tools (e.g., logos). Any other Community Group branding (e.g., use of W3C name or logo in ways that may confuse the state of standardization, or technology-specific logo development) is subject to review and approval by the Head of W3C Marketing and Communications.
Any Community Group branding (e.g., use of W3C name or logo, technology-specific logo development) is subject to review and approval by the Head of W3C Marketing and Communications.
Community Group Decision-Making Policies
This policy does not require a particular decision-making process. However, any process adopted by the group must be fair and must not unreasonably favor or discriminate against any group participant or their employer. For instance, the group may adopt fair and reasonable criteria for accepting contributions in a specification.
W3C encourages groups to favor decisions that reflect group consensus.
Community Group Meeting Policies
A Community Group is not required to hold meetings. However, if it does, then the Chair must ensure that the following happens:
- the meeting is announced to the group in a timely fashion so that people can schedule attendance;
- an agenda is posted;
- meeting minutes are published, including topics discussions and decisions.
Community Group Deliverables
Community Group deliverables may be anything, including documents, test suites, tutorials, demos, code, discussion, etc. W3C will provide infrastructure to host discussions, code, specifications, test suites, and so on. We expect that many Community Groups will work primarily on specifications, called Community Group Reports.
Deliverables are subject to the following requirements:
- They must be publicly available and must be archived permanently.
- The contribution (as defined under the CLA) history must be archived permanently.
- They must include the name the group that published the deliverables and link to a public page about the group.
- They must include a publication date.
- They must be distributed under the Copyright terms of the Community Group Agreement. W3C will provide a template for including copyright information.
- When published on the W3C site, they must not violate the W3C Privacy Policy.
- The content and style of the document must not cause confusion about its status, in particular with respect to W3C Technical Reports.
- Final Community Group Reports must be available in English.
- Final Community Group Reports must be published on the W3C Web site.
- Once a Final Community Group Report has been published at a given URI, the report must not change.
W3C reserves the right to refuse publication of deliverables, for instance if the material is likely to cause offense or confusion. W3C may publish additional policies to govern Community Group deliverables. W3C will provide style guides (and style sheets) for Community Group Reports, as well as good practice suggestions.
Community Council
The Community Development Lead organizes a Community Council whose mission is:
- to promote the program and ensure that it functions smoothly, and
- to help the Community Development Lead fulfill the duties described in this document.
Initially the Community Development Lead selects the Council participants, with an emphasis on representation of diverse interests (public, W3C Membership, staff, other standards organizations, etc.). The Community Development Lead may develop other mechanisms for participant selection.
Inreach
The Community Council works with existing groups in a variety of ways, including:
- Education of Community Group participants about doing work at W3C. This might involve creation of documentation, videos, or other tools. It might also involve chair training or providing good practice information to chairs.
- Education of the broader community about the work of a Community Group. This might involve communicating announcements or summaries in a newsletter.
- Connections among groups that have shared interests. This might involve organizing joint meetings.
Outreach
The Council promotes broad inclusion and participation by newcomers in a variety of ways, including:
- Promotion of the program in online fora, at events, and in new communities.
- Encouraging the creation of language-specific groups, international participation, and online meetings.
- Efforts that help avoid confusion with W3C’s standardization process (e.g., through videos or other materials that help explain how to do work at W3C).
Transition to W3C Standards Track
Some (but not all) Community Group Reports and Business Group Reports are expected to serve as input to a Working Group. W3C facilitates the transition from Community Group to the W3C Standards Track in a number of ways:
- Continuity of IPR commitments. The Community Group Agreement is designed to ensure smooth transition of IPR commitments from Community Groups to Working Groups.
- Continuity of participation. When a Working Group takes up a Community Group Report, non-Member employees may continue their participation in the Working Group for a limited duration while their employer makes the transition to Membership. The individual’s employer must have fulfilled the organizational patent requirements of the Community Group Agreement.
- Simplified charter template. If the mission of a new Working Group is simply to advance a Community Group Report to Recommendation, W3C provides a simplified charter template that is mostly boilerplate, with additional information about resources, deliverables, and milestones. Working Group charters created to standardize a Community Group Report must be reviewed by the Membership following the usual process.
Parallel Activities between a Community Group and a Working Group
A Community Group may continue to exist after a Working Group has been chartered. The Community Group may wish to start experimenting with new ideas for a technology while the Working Group builds consensus and focuses on implementation of a stable set of agreed upon features.
W3C suggests that once a Working Group has taken up a Community Group Report, the Community Group should no longer develop the same material in parallel. This has mostly to do with how the patent policies work. Working Group licensing commitments are limited to the deliverables of the Working Group, so commitments do not follow text that is taken up by other groups (Community Groups or Working Groups).
Business Groups
Business Groups are open to all (including companies, non-profits, government agencies, research institutes, individuals), but parties that are not W3C Members pay a fee to participate. That fee is less than W3C Membership and grants fewer benefits. Business Groups are designed to provide stakeholders in particular industries with a forum to develop industry-specific applications of Web technology, to create a strong liaison between a particular industry and the Web community, or to solve an industry-specific issue without an initial assumption of which Web technologies apply.
Business Group policies are the same as Community Groups except where noted below.
Creation of a Business Group
Business Groups are created in the same manner as Community Groups, except that a proposal is not complete until at least five Organizations support creation of the group. Because goal of Business Groups is to grow the W3C community, we expect Business Groups to have a mix of Member and non-Member Organizations and individuals.
Joining a Business Group
Joining a Business Group is the same as for a Community Group, except that:
- there is a participation fee,
- the individual participant fee is available to unaffiliated individuals or those granted an exception at the sole discretion of the Community Development Lead, and
- participants must also agree to the Business Group Agreement.
Business Group Communications
Each Business Group will have both public and non-public communications mechanisms. The participants decide which channel they use to conduct their work. If the group chooses to conduct its work on non-public channels, the group must maintain a public home page on the W3C site and must provide a public communication about their work at least every six months. This may take the form of a publication, a summary of work, or other form most suitable to keep the community informed of its progress.
Business Group Deliverables
Deliverables are the same as for Community Groups, except the published documents (specifications and other types) are called “Business Group Reports”.
Staff Involvement in Business Groups
Business Groups do not have staff contacts, but W3C management allocates a small percentage of staff time to consult to Business Groups and help them accomplish their goals.
In addition:
- Business Group Chairs may request an annual review with W3C management and the technical staff, to share progress and gather feedback on technical direction.
- For Business Groups creating materials they intend as input to a Working Group (e.g., an industry-specific set of requirements), the staff will help to coordinate direct Chair-to-Chair communication.
Participation Policies
These policies designed to encourage constructive participation and to balance IPR considerations with ease of participation.
Violations of these policies should be brought to the attention of the Community Development Lead. The Community Development Lead is authorized to ban participants for violations of this policy or the signed Agreements, and also to reinstate them. Banned participants may appeal to the Head of W3C Communications.
Community Group Agreement
The Community Group Agreement seeks to balance the concerns of both implementers and IPR-holders. This section gives an informative overview of the two license agreements involved:
Copyright
All participant contributions to a Report produced by the group are made available under a permissive copyright license that allow the creation of derivative works.
A Business Group may choose to publish its document under the W3C Document Licence.
Patents
The patent policy has two steps:
- Contributor Agreement. A participant that makes a contribution to a specification produced by the group agrees to Royalty-Free patent licenses for the contribution. This commitment is governed by the W3C Community Contributor License Agreement (CLA). Note: The CLA provides limited patent rights, which is why the execution of the Final Specification Agreement is important for wide deployment.
- Final Specification Agreement. When the group has completed work on the specification, the Chair issues a call for final commitments. Participants make voluntary Royalty-Free patent license commitments over the entire specification. This commitment is governed by the W3C Community Final Specification Agreement. In addition, the W3C Community Group Agreement involves a commitment so that material that advances to W3C Recommendation also benefits (automatically) from a Royalty-Free commitment.
The two-step process is designed to:
- make it possible to start a group quickly, since organizations may not be required to evaluate portfolios against a scope statement.
- make it easier for companies to join a group, since a company’s initial commitment only extends to the company’s own contributions.
- provide implementers with some patent protection during development of a specification, and even more when the specification is completed.
W3C has a preference for organizational, rather than individual commitments. Requests to participate in an individual capacity without a corresponding organizational commitment will be subject to approval by the W3C staff, such approval to be granted or denied in the W3C Staff’s sole discretion.
Disclosure
The policies do not define any patent disclosure obligations.
General Communications Policies
All Participants agree to the following general communications policies:
- Participants must have an identity within the community.
- Communications must not be disruptive. Participants must refrain from defaming, harassing or otherwise offending other participants or their organizations.
- Participants must not send unsolicited commercial messages or other promotional activities for personal matters or for third parties.
- Participants must respect confidentiality levels of communications.
Glossary
- Community Development Lead
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The individual responsible for the Community Group program. The Community Development Lead, appointed by the W3C Management, is responsible for:
- Monitoring the W3C Forum
- Managing escalation of issues
- Managing the composition and operations of the Community Council
- Liaison with the W3C Staff (e.g., for outreach opportunities)
- Community Council
- This task force assists existing community groups (e.g., in how the standards process works, accessibility input early in the development of the specification) and proactively seeks opportunities to engage with communities outside W3C, to find and communicate opportunities for liaisons.
- Community Submission
- Community Submissions are proposals made in the W3C Forum. A Community Submission that is supported becomes input to a Community or Business Group.
- Community Group or Business Group Report
- A Community or Business Group Report is a document (specification or other) produced by a Community or Business Group, governed by the Community Group Agreement. It may subsequently become input to a W3C Working Group.
- W3C Forum
- A single global public forum where anyone may begin to generate interest around new ideas.